A Low Country Seafood Boil Is A Real Gas

August 10, 1989|By Merle Ellis.

Outdoor cooking in America means more than just barbecuing. . . much, much more.

In Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri, up and down the rivers of middle-America, a cookout is more likely to be a fish fry than a barbecue. Catfish fillets, catfish steaks or small whole catfish are dusted with yellow cornmeal and cooked the way they oughta be, in a kettle of deep fat, and served up with hush puppies `n` slaw.

Around the lakes of Minnesota, the fish more likely would be walleye pike, pan fried in a black iron skillet. And in Wisconsin, a cookout would almost certainly contain bratwurst simmered with onions in a big pot of beer.

On the coast of Maine, it`s a pot of steamed lobsters or clams, and in the bayous of Louisiana, ``Cajun turkey`` deep fried in a big pot of peanut oil. And almost everywhere, when it`s in season, a cookout includes corn on the cob.

Much, if not most, of that catfish, walleye, lobster, sausage and corn cooked at cookouts all across this country will not be cooked over coals on the traditional barbecue grill, but rather on a gas cooker powered by a tank of butane.

A heavy duty outdoor gas cooker, with the appropriate utensils to accompany it, is a very useful and versatile piece of equipment for an enthusiastic outdoor cookout cook.

They are available in a variety of heat capacities, from low pressure burners with a maximum of 26,000 BTUs, primarily used for the slow cooking of stews, burgoos and gumbos, to the high pressure 160,000 BTU burner, perfect for all kinds of outdoor cooking from blackened redfish to Cajun turkey.

For my money, when it comes to outdoor gas cookers, bigger is indeed better-you always can turn it down.

They are made low to the ground so you can lower a wire boiling basket full of corn or crabs or lobster into a 36-gallon pot of boiling water with relative ease. Or if you plan to use somewhat smaller pots, the low pressure cooker comes on a 30-inch stand that enables you to cook standing up without having to bend over the fire.

There are, I am sure, several companies in the country that make outdoor gas cookers of various kinds. The one I have happens to be made by Drexel in Shreveport, La. It`s their heavy duty outdoor gas cooker with a high-low burner. I use it for all kinds of things.

It`s perfect for cooking the big pot of pinquinto beans to accompany the beef at a Santa Maria style barbecue, or for frying the hush puppies to accompany the barbecued pork that is traditional in North Carolina. It will get a black-iron skillet hot in a hurry to blacken a redfish or a catfish or a carp. And when it comes to cooking corn on the cob, nothing can compare.

It is also the ideal cooker for the wonderful one-pot outdoor meal that is typical of the coastal region of South Carolina and Georgia called low country seafood boil. The following recipe comes from a friend who knows the food of that part of the country well.

NATHALIE DUPREE`S LOW COUNTRY SEAFOOD BOIL

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Yield: 16 servings

Nathalie Dupree serves the cooked potatoes, sausage, corn, crab and shrimp piled high on a large serving platter, discarding the onions, garlic and lemons. I like to dump the entire contents of the boiling basket on a picnic table covered with many layers of the Sunday paper and let everybody dig in. Some folks, like me, like the onion and garlic. Serve some cocktail sauce for the fish, sour cream for the potatoes and melted butter for the corn in bowls to accompany.

8 large potatoes

8 large onions, preferably Vidalia or Texas Sweets

2 pounds hot country sausage links

6 heads of garlic, broken into cloves

3 hot red peppers, chopped

6 lemons, cut in half

1 cup cider vinegar

16 ears of fresh sweet corn, husks removed

Salt, freshly ground pepper to taste

Hot red pepper sauce to taste

6 pounds unpeeled raw shrimp

16 blue crabs, preferably live

1. Fill your large boiling pot a little more than half full of water. Heat to boil over high heat. Peel and quarter potatoes and onions; put in the wire boiling basket. When the water is boiling rapidly, lower the basket into the water. Cook over high heat for 20 minutes.